COCOT Payphone Software

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A friend of mine told me the other day that if you call certain COCOT phones and wait for the modem sound to dissipate, you can punch in a phone number and hear a "Please deposit [rate amount]". I tried it, and this did happen. So I had this idea that maybe I could red box a COCOT phone by calling one from a land line phone and playing red box tones into the phone. Well, supposedly this won't work, as COCOTs tend to have their own internal coin register. So I'm looking for software to try and mess with a local (not the same) COCOT phone.

If I can accurately recall from off the top of my head, it looks more like a Protel COCOT than a QuorTech (formerly Elcotel) COCOT phone. Interestingly enough, the Millennium Phone, which is well-noted amongst phone phreaks, especially for the price of it's software and how difficult it is to acquire the software.

Might anyone have any leads for any management software for the Protel or Quortech COCOT phones?

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A friend of mine told me the other day that if you call certain COCOT phones and wait for the modem sound to dissipate, you can punch in a phone number and hear a "Please deposit [rate amount]". I tried it, and this did happen. So I had this idea that maybe I could red box a COCOT phone by calling one from a land line phone and playing red box tones into the phone. Well, supposedly this won't work, as COCOTs tend to have their own internal coin register. So I'm looking for software to try and mess with a local (not the same) COCOT phone.

If I can accurately recall from off the top of my head, it looks more like a Protel COCOT than a QuorTech (formerly Elcotel) COCOT phone. Interestingly enough, the Millennium Phone, which is well-noted amongst phone phreaks, especially for the price of it's software and how difficult it is to acquire the software.

Might anyone have any leads for any management software for the Protel or Quortech COCOT phones?

from what i understand you *think* that you are going to be able to call into a COCOT wait for the modem to stop sending tones, then call out from the payphone???

if that is what you are thinking that you want to do, you are going to be highly disappointed... the COCOT only has one phone line connected to it, and if you are calling into the phone you are already tying that line up...

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A friend of mine told me the other day that if you call certain COCOT phones and wait for the modem sound to dissipate, you can punch in a phone number and hear a "Please deposit [rate amount]". I tried it, and this did happen. So I had this idea that maybe I could red box a COCOT phone by calling one from a land line phone and playing red box tones into the phone. Well, supposedly this won't work, as COCOTs tend to have their own internal coin register. So I'm looking for software to try and mess with a local (not the same) COCOT phone.

If I can accurately recall from off the top of my head, it looks more like a Protel COCOT than a QuorTech (formerly Elcotel) COCOT phone. Interestingly enough, the Millennium Phone, which is well-noted amongst phone phreaks, especially for the price of it's software and how difficult it is to acquire the software.

Might anyone have any leads for any management software for the Protel or Quortech COCOT phones?

from what i understand you *think* that you are going to be able to call into a COCOT wait for the modem to stop sending tones, then call out from the payphone???

if that is what you are thinking that you want to do, you are going to be highly disappointed... the COCOT only has one phone line connected to it, and if you are calling into the phone you are already tying that line up...

To add to what nyphonejacks said, if it's a COCOT, you won't have any luck playing around with red box tones. You may have luck picking up the handset and playing DTMF tones into the microphone. You may also have luck if you dial a toll-free number, be hung up on, and wait to get a dial tone, on which you could either use the keypad to dial a number, or play DTMF tones into the microphone. If you live in an area where you get a dial tone after the person you're speaking with hangs up, the second "trick" has a higher chance of working on COCOTS on that same switch.

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I did a Google search for "pay phone management software" and there seems to be a lot of it, though I didn't click on any links to see how easy it is to get. Maybe if you call up some of these pay phone manufacturers and convince them that you're a pay phone vendor, they'll tell you how to get the software for free. Seems like if you're buying pay phones from them, the software would come with it for free.

Have you tried just using a terminal program to connect? I don't know if that would work, but it might be worth trying. If you do happen to connect to one, let us know how it goes and post some screen shots of what the software looks like. I remember about 10 years ago, there was pay phone management software floating around and being traded on some forums.

Hopefully you realize that actually calling into a pay phone with this software would be very illegal. Especially if you try to change the rate plans around so everyone gets free long distance from that phone.

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If the phone sounds like 804-291-9958, it's probably an Elcotel board. That particular one isn't one of them, but some will let you any alarm conditions, and how much money is in the coin vault if you don't press anything. The way COCOT housings work is the boards inside are all completely interchangeable - you can retrofit almost any phone with a COCOT board, or swap one out for another. In practice, though, most COCOTs tend to either be millenniums or phones with the coin slot on the right (ACTS phones will have the coin slot in the center, and the coin slot on the left).

Regardless of all that, I've got a recording of an Elcotel COCOT generating tones whenever I put in coins. If you're trying to get operator assistance from one, they might actually put a call through if you put in "money". To add to what Jman said, there's other ways of tricking the phone. I've been told if you call a payphone and hang up while it's ringing, you can get an unrestricted dialtone if you pick up slow enough for the switch to tear down the incoming call, but fast enough for the COCOT to think it's still there.

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Thanks for your responses, the mention of a Google search and the expired domain. I shall take these tricks into consideration. I have tried calling some COCOT phones with a regular terminal program (Hyperterminal in Win2K, to be exact) in various terminal emulation modes, and I received no output from the payphone. I am considering the possibility of using an answering machine to attempt to capture various tones and such. Perhaps with a combination of audio recordings, three-way, a cell phone and a couple of COCOT phones, I can contrive some method of capturing set-up and tear down noises and things like that, and figure out what sort of things these COCOT payphones do when they perform their functions.

Interesting having RBCP respond to my post. I shall consider this an honor and a gerbil

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Pleasure is all mine. I'll see about getting it renewed. In the meantime, use thoughtphreaker.ath.cx .

If you're implying you're going to do something similar to how I made a capture of the Millennium, you might want to rethink a few things;

1) Three-way on cellular phones (at least on GSM) only works after both calls supe, so you won't be able to hear setup of any sort. You might want to consider investing in a modem, or some other device you can remotely tell to three-way a call.

2) That sort of hackery won't work on most COCOTs, as they generally pick up the line whenever you lift the handset. At least with Protel and Elcotel, and Intellicall phones. Some even monitor for talk battery, and another party picking up the phone line.

You can always mash a pickup coil against the handset (or just find one in a quiet place and listen) to figure out what's going on behind the scenes, but this is a bit noisy to intercept whatever the modems are doing.